One Thousand Gifts *112-118

112. So grateful for this wonderful diner... Isn't coffee so nice when someone brings it to you with a smile.

113. Gorgeous waterscape at a physical therapy center that my neighbor's 95 year old mom can enjoy while she recovers from hip surgery. ~ We love you, Yolanda, and wish you quick healing ~
114. Hysterical moments at the park with my daughter's dog, Mr. Darcy. He forfeited his otherwise dignified appearance for a photo in the freestanding photo-panel.

115. Amanda's safe trip to the west coast... praying for safety there and her return.

116. Clean, fresh summer breezes to dry my laundry.
117. For the warm hearts that I meet here in blogland ;o)

118. This tired ol' dog, Muffin... I'm sure she's grateful for her cozy bed...


~All is Gift ...... All is Blessing

Clean Thoughts *Gift 3*

I humbly thank the Creator, the One who sets order to the universe... for sending me these lovely people who daily inspire me.

Thank you Lord, for my sister who shares her thoughts about keeping order and gently shines light ...
She's been in my basement. She's opened those drawers!
Thank you Lord, for the wider community that inspires and motivates me to conquer the unkempt corners of my house ... of my heart ... of my soul.
This post followed a phone call from my sister in which we shared our "clean house" philosophy. . .
She - more conscientious about tidiness, I - more relaxed...
(a reversal from childhood).
Ann Voskamp wrote of this last week ~ A Divine Appointment, I always say. Ann writes for me, for many.
That was it, that was my moment... I knew what I had to do... Scrub brush in hand, knees on floor, hot steamy pine scent filling the air...

Doreen inspired Clean was on its way to Maria's house!

"Science may call it entropy, the second law of thermodynamics, the wearing down of all systems. God calls it sin and decay. I call it my daily battle.

Dirty laundry, sprouting weeds, piling dishes, dust collecting... this is life after the Fall.

Yet, in small ways, I return to God and the Perfect Time Before when I order, wash away, sweep clean...beating back the chaos, the powers of destruction.

Simple acts of cleaning are humble, conquering efforts in the quotidian struggle between chaos and order, creation and disintegration, God and Death.

Deliberate, ritual motions can maintain an easy order. Daily attending to picking up, putting away, cleaning out is easier than wrestling order out of invading chaos.

A tidy space ushers in the possibility of a tidy heart. A heart beating with His, in a place more like that place In the Beginning.

Is work a picture of entering into Redemption? To bring restoration to that which has fallen...

I can frame this task at hand as my monastic beauty, my daily wrestle to create, in imperfect ways, a world more like the one He created for humanity when the world began...."
~Ann VosKamp
A Holy Experience